KIDD'S OWN JOUKNAL. 



71 



tion of fruits, flowers, and plants. The 

 effect produced by the intervention of a 

 substance between the radiating body on the 

 surface of the earth and the upper regions of 

 the air (which are well known to be the 

 abodes of perpetual congelation), has an 

 important bearing on horticulture. Even a 

 thin wire gauze, suspended over a body which 

 readily admits the deposition of dew, will 

 suffice to prevent its occurrence. " I had 

 often," says Dr. W., " in the pride of half- 

 knowledge, smiled at the means frequently 

 employed by gardeners to protect plants from 

 cold, as it appeared to me impossible that a 

 thin mat, or any such flimsy substance, could 

 prevent them from attaining the temperature 

 of the atmosphere, by which alone I thought 

 them liable to be injured. But when I had 

 learned that bodies on the surface of the 

 earth become, during a still and serene night, 

 colder than the atmosphere, by radiating 

 their heat to the Heavens, I perceived im- 

 mediately a just reason for the practice which 

 I had before deemed useless. Being desirous, 

 however, of acquiring some precise informa- 

 tion on this subject, I fixed perpendicularly, 

 in the earth of a grass-plot, four small sticks ; 

 and over their upper extremities, which were 

 six inches above the grass, and formed the 

 corners of a square, the sides of which were 

 two feet long, I drew tightly a very thin 

 cambric handkerchief. The temperature of 

 the grass, which was thus shielded from the 

 sky, was upon many nights afterwards ex- 

 amined by me, and was always found higher 

 than that of the neighboring grass which was 

 uncovered, if this was colder than the air." 



The result of an experiment will be vitiated 

 as much even by the vicinity of a house or a 

 tree, as if a substance were actually inter- 

 posed between the surface of the earth and 

 the sky. It is well known that, in spots 

 shielded by the spreading branches of a tree, 

 dew is much less abundantly deposited. 

 This fact was not unknown to the immortal 

 Milton, who says — 



Full forty days he passed, whether on hill 

 Sometimes, anon on shady vale, each night 

 Under the covert of some ancient oak, 

 Or cedar, to defend him from the dew. 



As dew not unfrequently partakes of the 

 sensible qualities of the bodies upon which 

 it is deposited, it has sometimes been errone- 

 ously confounded with foreign substances. 

 " What is termed honey-dew^ says Dr. Traill, 

 " generally owes if s qualities to the saccharine 

 exudation from the bodies of the insects 

 called Aphides. The jelly-dew is believed to 

 be the original form of a cryptogamian 

 vegetable production, the Tremella nostoc of 

 Linnaeus ; a membraneous, pellucid, greenish- 

 yellow matter, about one or two inches in 

 width, which is at first moist and soft to the 

 touch, but dries into a blackish membrane." 



SONG OF THE MARCH WINDS. 



" Come from your eyries, come from your caves," 



To his sons, old iEolus cries : 

 " Come with the rush of the ocean waves, 

 With a lion's strength and a lion's roar, 

 And drive them along the sounding shore, 



And the cloud-rack o'er the skies, 

 For your favorite month, the month of the winds, 



March, stormy March, is here ; 

 'Tis your gala now — no fetter binds 

 Your Bacchanal career. 

 Go, then, ye are free 

 To hold jubilee ! 

 Go, keep your wild orgies, sing in your glee, 

 And lord it o'er land and sea ! " 



" Hark ! 'tis our father iEolus calls — 



Come, brothers, up and away ! " 

 Stern Boreas shouts. u From our cavern-halls 

 In a rolling whirlwind let's hurst on the earth, 

 And riot and revel in mischief and mirth 1 



Oh ! is it not a glorious play 

 To lash the sea-horses' manes of snow, 



Till they toss the white foam to Heaven ; 

 And plunge the proud bark in the gulf below, 

 With its timbers all rent and riven ? 

 We've rare sport, I trow, 

 With the oaken prow, 

 When we make the king of the forest how, 

 Like a reed, his stately brow r ! " 



" Aye f and better still than 'mid raging floods, 



We'll conquer the oak in his own 

 Domain I " cries the treacherous East. " In the 



woods 

 We'll shake their strong monarch, and hunt him 



down; 

 And tear from his forehead its branchy crown, 



And topple him off his throne ! 

 Come, gentle South ! with thy softest breath 



Tempt the fragile maiden forth ; 

 Then away ! and leave our work of death 

 To me and the piercing North, 

 We'll nip her young bloom, 

 As a blight doth consume 

 The young rose ; and when we have sealed her 

 doom, 

 Sing merrily o'er her tomb ! " 



" Shame ! out on your barbarous revelry ! " 



Mild Zephyrus tenderly sighs ; 

 " Stay, gentle South ! and soon follow with me 

 To the wreck-strewn ocean, and ravaged wood, 

 And enjoy the pure bliss of doing good — 



• Sole pleasure which never dies. 

 We'll kiss the pale cheek, undo the fell curse, 



The maid to her lover restore ; 

 Smooth the rough billows, the chilled flowera 

 nurse, 

 And fan them to life once more. 

 Thus, — thus we'll prepare 

 For our lady fair, 

 Sweet April ! scattering balm on the air, 

 And blessings everywhere." 



A GOOD-NATURED HINT. 



Excess in apparel invariably denotes a fool, whether 

 in man or woman. The very " trimmings" of the vain 

 world would clothe all the naked ones. 



